Kiryu-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about a hundred and six thousand (106,445 in 2020). This city’s population carries a step from the incorporation merger. In 2005 Kiryu-shi incorporated Niisato village and Kurobone village to reach its present municipal area. The old Kiryu-shi was 115,434 in 2000; with the two villages added, it became 128,037 in 2005, and from there, through 121,704 in 2010 and 114,714 in 2015 to 106,445 in 2020, it has fallen on a steep gradient since the incorporation.

Looking inside the figures, the figure of a town of textiles shrinking as the age of silk recedes appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 21.4% (2000) to 36.1% (2020), nearing four in ten. The household-with-children share is low at 16.7% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.55 in fiscal 2023 — a level covering a little over half of expenditure with its own tax revenue, middling for a small-to-mid city. The town of textiles, after the incorporation, loses population and deepens its aging while keeping its finances middling — that is what appears in the figures. Why it took this form cannot be seen without going back over the history of silk textiles.

Kiryu’s skeleton is set by the land caught between the Watarase River and the mountains, and by the silk textiles that grew there. The old layer is silk. The silk textiles of this land are said to trace back even to records of the Nara era, and hold a long history. In the Edo era, taking in techniques from the noted weaving district of the old capital and adopting Western technology early as well, Kiryu’s silk textiles developed greatly. Spoken of in the same breath as “Nishijin in the west, Kiryu in the east,” it flourished until the early Showa era as one of the textile-producing districts representative of Japan. Several weaving techniques — dyeing the thread before weaving, weaving out intricate patterns, and others — are handed down in this land.

And in the modern era, distinctive factories stood in rows in this town. Factories with roofs shaped like the teeth of a saw. This roof, taking in light from its north-facing side, was a device to keep within the factory a light steady and not too strong, and was widely used in factories of weaving and dyeing. In the age when the export of raw silk thread supported the nation’s economy, from the Meiji to the early Showa era, many of these sawtooth-roof factories were built in Kiryu, and over two hundred are said still to remain within the city. Called “Nishijin in the west, Kiryu in the east,” sawtooth-roof factories stood in rows. That silk had long been woven in the valley caught between the Watarase River and the mountains gave birth, in this land, to a textile-producing district representative of Japan and to a factory group mirroring its scale.

What characterizes Kiryu-shi is that, while bearing the history of a silk-textile district representative of Japan, after the age of silk receded it loses population and deepens its aging. From 128,037 in 2005, with the two villages added, to 106,445 in 2020, it lost over twenty thousand in fifteen years. Amid the spread of synthetic fibers and competition with cheap imported goods, the local industry centered on silk textiles shrank, and the footing that sustained the town can be read as having thinned. In addition, the flow of a young generation moving to cities such as Tokyo continues. That the share aged 65 and over is 36.1% in 2020, nearing four in ten, is the expression of that population composition too.

On the other hand, fiscal stamina holds middling. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.55 is a level covering a little over half of expenditure with its own tax revenue, middling for a small-to-mid city. New manufacturing in place of textiles, and local establishments, can be read as lending a certain thickness to the tax source. The Childcare Waitlist too was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The town of textiles now, after the age of silk receded, loses population and deepens its aging while keeping its finances middling. A decreasing population, aging nearing four in ten, middling finances. The present of this town of textiles, from which the age of silk has receded, cannot be grasped by taking out any single number. Only by binding the three together does the town’s present come into view.

In Kiryu several faces silk brought overlap. One is the history of a silk textile spoken of in the same breath as the noted weaving district of the old capital and called “Nishijin in the west, Kiryu in the east,” holding the old layer of a textile-producing district representative of Japan. Another is the townscape where sawtooth-roof factories taking in light from the north remain, over two hundred of them, keeping the character of conveying the scale of the age of silk to this day. And the landform of a valley caught between the Watarase River and the mountains gives this town the distinctive structure of a town of textiles.

From an ancient silk-producing district, to a town of textiles called “Nishijin in the west, Kiryu in the east,” and on to a town after the age of silk receded. The strength of a land that had long woven silk in the valley of the Watarase River called in the textile-producing district and had the sawtooth-roof factories built. Walk the streets of the valley and the sawtooth roofs taking in light from the north still run on, over two hundred of them; from deep within buildings where the sound of the looms has ceased peers a new air, the buildings repurposed as shops and workshops — into a townscape that keeps the very outline of silk’s peak, the life of another age has made its way.